There was an arrow notched across it, ready to be drawn completely and loosed. The man shouted to the others in surprise, and Kulith drew the Tuvier Blade as the point of the arrow turned and fixed on him. It was shot hastily, and only had time to leave the bow before his blade slapped the shaft away to the side. Kulith followed it with a long thrust that skewered the man. He must have done some evil, because the sword went through him with no protest. Kulith looked for the next outlaw and advanced, as the man drew out a knife and an axe, and called to the others for help.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
WAYLAND
KROLO
“It’s good to see you all,” Wayland said, as he accepted the bucket of beer Sarmur passed around to him. They were sitting in the Black Hare, his favorite tavern in Krolo. He drank from the bucket, then handed it off to another one of the men, and rested back in the heavy chair he now sat upon. Spits of skewered beef, onions and carrots had been roasted on the hearth, and placed out in front of them on platters with bread and rice. An apricot pie waited nearby on a sideboard, ready for desert, with a white sugar pudding.
Before he had paused to take the drink they had all been talking about the war. No sooner had one ended then another began, and actually it had been going on since the summer, and its action chased them now all the way across Gece. It was mostly the locations that had shifted, and their attention, and it was about to make them all into its soldiers.
Wayland took out a piece of gold he had traded from a cave in the Priwak and examined it, wondering if he should keep it or sell it on. He might keep it, he thought, perhaps on a silver chain, to display to folk as he told the tale, to get free drinks. He tried to calculate the cost of those for the next twenty years, when he showed it around to those that did not believe him. It was a regular jewel fit for a noble, and he thought better of it now, and he decided to sell away when he reached a city where it could get a good price.
A singer came toward them with a harp, and they ate their fill while he sang some of the stanzas he had so far worked out. Temmi corrected him once, saying he had not been present during the adventure to the lake, and should not be included just because his name rhymed well. After the meal they bedded down in a corner of the common room on new straw, and snored enough to cut a cord of wood. Wayland awoke and turned over a few times during the night, but the hearth’s glow made his feel at home and he soon went back to sleep, his duty seeming well done. Visions of the house in Eseril, in the Dutchy of Marmad floated often through his head.
He awoke the next morning, washed, and then attached the gilded scales of the Travelers back to the front of his dark winter cloak. He went up to the castle gate, with the intention of discussing with Johnas Tygus the state of affairs on the border, and of soon accompanying the Countess back to Rydol, as had been specified in his original order. After that, he was a little concerned about where they would be posted through the winter, and if they would be directed out immediately onto a battlefield. His leg throbbed a little still, and his chest stung sometimes where he had taken the sword tip during the duel.
“Ho there, Traveler Knight,” one of the sergeants called out to him, as he approached. He went over to see what was going on. The sergeant pointed over at some carts that had been lined up and loaded. “These carts are going east down the road toward Kavvar. I want you to take your men and accompany them with mine as far as Grevies, then return back in a group tomorrow.”
“Oh, I see,” Wayland replied. He had been given another dirty task to do by Johnas Tygus or Lord Sirlaw. He was being made to go and explain things now to the Lord of Grevies. Perhaps it was a task that had always been his to do.
“Go get your men and mounts ready,” the sergeant said. “I’ll lend you four of my archers, but don’t feast them tonight, or you’ll never get them back here tomorrow. I don’t think the countess is going to disappear, or ride on to Rydol without you.” It was a fair request, and they would all get paid for it.
“I’m going back then to go get ready,” Wayland said. He returned to the inn and roused up his men. They fell out and started putting their gear into order, then got out and saddled up their horses with the stable boy, who treated them with great deference, not knowing yet the difference between them and real knights.
Perhaps it was just an unfortunate duty being thrust on him, but he wondered if there was some ulterior motive to not letting him get out his dispatches that day, or go wander around the castle asking questions. He trusted Lord Sirlaw and Johnas Tygrus, but he did not know what news might have just come down the road.
They were escorting twelve wagons of grain, corn and barley, mixed in with pottery, some wood spines for lances, bushels of onions, beans, potatoes, turnips, pumpkins and about three tons of ironwork for wagons, fixtures and weapons. There were also mixed apples in baskets, the last of the late summer crop off the trees. It was another thing that reminded Wayland of home, and though the weather had gone crisp and cold here, it would be wet and windy on the isles now, and along the coast of Marmad.
The drivers began to bring the wagons around, using the drags on some, and then they went out one at a time through Krolo’s main gate. Wayland counted them off and checked them with the archers he had been promised. He took the lead, riding with Temmi, and they worked with the first wagon driver in the line to set an acceptable pace. They had passed the village and castle of Grevies on the way there, and he recalled the dark walls set up on a mound, the approaches uninvitingly planted with thickets of thorns.
The crops and countryside they passed had gone to winter, but was still much the same as when he had rode in from Rydol. To the north lay Gilsflor Pools and the burned out village of Hevois. There were blackened fields where the goblins had raided all the way across, like dark rips through a blanket. There were flocks in the meadows between the chestnuts, maples and oaks, and stone walled fields cut down and waiting to be turned over for the next year. There were some burned farmsteads, but not as many as if the place had been gone through slowly by a moving army.
The road curved down into shallow basins between the hills, into the old water ways of the river. Here and there were little lakes, between the trees and the fields, with mills where the water ran fast. They passed corn and beans that had been picked, and fenced pig runs, with smoke houses in rows now laying up bacon. There were nut trees, and orchards of pears and apples, and Wayland heard the old words in his head about bringing something to a place there had plenty of it already. The stuff they carted was all for the new war, not because of the old raids, and he figured someone else knew where it all belonged.
In the late afternoon they came into the village of Grevies. There was the castle, the sides partially wet, on an embankment circled with thorns. It was a holdfast, with dark, gray twenty foot walls, and towers at the corners. Inside against one of the walls was built a large manor house. They rode in and checked the wagons with the guard, then set a watch before freeing the teams of oxen, and taking them over into a pasture for the night. As Wayland was talking with the drivers and the guard that had relieved them, two riders came up the road behind them from Krolo.
She took off her helm and smiled down at him. “My father forgot to tell you why he ordered you here,” she said. “I was afraid that you would be unable to find this manor.”
“Lady Tazah,” Wayland observed, not unpleasantly. “Yes, finding this manor might have given me some difficulty.” She nodded her head, in understanding.
“Well I thought we needed to come also.” The other rider took off his helmet, but Wayland already knew it was her brother Wulman. “As an escort for my sister,” he said, “and to apologize myself for losing Sabine.” Wayland had hardly known the young man before, but he liked him now, based on his acceptance of this responsibility.
“Let’s go up to the house with some food,” he said, “and not impose on them too much. And as for the episode with Sabine running off, while you could have done more to keep her accounted for, you were
injured, and life surprises us all. Let me explain to them what happened to her.”
He had a porter from the inn bring up two buckets of beer, some bread, and a great pot of chicken and potato stew. His men and the archers followed them on into the manor’s hall. The guards called out then, announcing Krolo. The servants and the family came out to see, since Krolo was the major holding in their part of the world, and a lot had just happened there. The lord recognized Lady Tazah and her brother immediately.
“I am Bruk,” he said, introducing himself to the people there who did not know him. “Why is Krolo in my hall?” The lord looked about, perhaps hoping for a word of explanation.
“I am Wayland of the Isles, a Traveler Knight in the command of the Captain of Troli,” Wayland told him. “I recently went into the Priwak to free people there enslaved by the goblins, by paying their ransoms, and otherwise. We freed a girl named Sabine, but then lost her again, coming back out of the foothills. She ran off, and no man can now say where she is.” The lord’s wife leaned back and used a paneled wall to support herself. A little girl also there began to cry.
“She’s my oldest daughter,” Bruk said, and Wayland nodded back in acknowledgement of this fact.
“We can only hope, and ask for the Three to spare her and still bring her home,” Wayland said. “I ask for the hospitality of your hall for the night, before we return back to Krolo. I will tell you the full story of how it was.”
“I give it then,” Bruk replied. “And my house is always open to the lords of Krolo.”
They unsaddled the horses in the yard as it got dark, and put them into the care of a pair of grooms who were pressed to get everything done while they could still see. They stacked their gear against the near wall of the manor, then went in and sat down, and were served around. Bruk had the tables put together and got the Lady Tazah and Wulman good chairs, and set them close at hand. Wayland was on the left, about half way down. A thick potage was served with bread, and they were each given a cup of wine. When they had eaten most of the food, Lord Bruk became serious and gestured down to Wayland.
“Tell me now the story of my daughter,” he demanded. Wayland set down his cup and cleared his throat to speak.
“Sabine was ransomed from a vile goblin chieftain named Weech at the village of Warukz, on the shore of Lake Aven. She had fought off her captors to such an extent that they were glad to be rid of her, biting them viciously with the only weapon she possessed. I’m afraid though, that before I freed her, she suffered additional torment by an evil witch, and I will not say here what was done. She helped guide us back to that witch’s lair, where we slew the monster and rescued two other women, one of them being the Countess of Rydol.” There were appreciative gasps at that news. Perhaps they had heard it before, but not in this way, with someone they knew as a part of it.
“Before we fought the witch, Sabine withdrew with a group of other captives who could not fight in the battle to come. On the slopes of the Priwak above the Vara, this group was attacked by a band of goblins. At times, Sabine was unclear, suffering from the ordeals she had endured.” Wayland paused here, and then he went on.
“But I believe that when this attack occurred, she ran away, hoping to draw them off, and save the others who were less able. After the battle they could not find her. Perhaps she hid in a cave, or elsewhere, and may still walk into a village or be rescued at some time in the future.” The family looked stricken, but seemed to accept what had happened. Wayland looked to Wulman, who seemed to now have tears in his eyes, and he nodded his head back, likeing what he had heard. Bruk’s wife, the Lady of Grevies began to cry.
Later Wayland went back outside to look at the horses, while the archers and his men bedded down in the hall. The lord had retired with his family to their rooms above, the light of lanterns still visible through the paned windows of their solar and rooms. Tazah came over to him as he stood there; her polished pauldrons over her mail catching the torch light and making a partial halo appear around her head.
“My father will have Wulman cleaning out the gardrobes for half a year because he lost Sabine,” she said. “You made it sound like she’s likely to be made a saint.”
“There have been saints made for less, that is for sure,” Wayland considered, as he spoke. “Like Johnas Tygus said, build a story that inspires those who follow after you. Perhaps what I said was the way it all happened, and nothing else. What would the world be like if it were not so?”
“You have done Krolo another favor,” she replied. “And that was worth seeing.” She paused for a moment, and then continued. “That is only part of the reason I came. Johnas Tygus is too interested in me, asking all kinds of stupid questions. I needed to be free of him for a day to think.”
“I thought this was what you wanted?” he said to her. She and Grotoy were doing more than talking, if what he had heard through the windows of the castle could be believed, and be put on the both of them. “We were feasted all the way north from Kassal. Now Krolo has within its walls a countess, the next count of Grotoy, the attention of one of Kavvar’s leading vassals, and my own small jurisdiction. It’s the brightest spot in the West Lands. Is this the type of life you hoped for?”
“Yes, I did,” she admitted.
“Then you must accept and grasp it, and prepare for what happens next. Grotoy, Kavvar and perhaps even Rydol will reward Krolo in some way for returning the countess. Wulman’s inability to safeguard Sabine has dulled this a shade, but it is still going to happen. That star will probably fall mostly on you now, Lady Tazah.”
“He’s a very dashing man, is he not?” she asked him, as she slowly turned around in front of him. She looked up past the castle’s walls as she did it, at the night sky. Perhaps she was counting her stars there, among the others that now shined down.
“He is, and he is brave, and a good man from what I can tell, better than I hoped. Grotoy is a great city, far from the goblins and the trolls.”
She stopped suddenly and grabbed him by his cloak, and she brought their heads together and she kissed him. He accepted it after a moment. She lingered there a little longer, and then she pulled out of his arms.
“Thank you,” she said. She laughed in a little titter with no sign of the braying she had made on other occasions. She smiled and then touched a palm up to her mouth. “And I wanted to know what it was like to kiss you, if I take it into my head to kiss him next.” Wayland knew that she must have already done so, but she was overcome now with love, but it was only a love of the things that they had done. These were after all, romantic times.
“My lady that is of course, the surest way to measure the difference,” Wayland replied, trying to stifle his own disappointment. He found the words to cope with this not so surprising turn, but it was still hard for him to say them. “I advise you however to not go and kiss Grotoy, but let him kiss you first.” Such events were to be expected, he knew, when a person left their homeland and traveled.
They got up slowly the next morning, and only then did Wayland remember and consider the warning of Tazah’s father regarding excessive feasting and drinking. He went out into the yard and saw a dispatch from the capital heading down the road from the east, toward Krolo. They were passing the wagons leaving Grieves under a new guard, headed for Sarsving Castle or Rydol. He waved the men down, and they turned in from the road to ride over and talk with him. He saw the suns and swans on purple of Kavvar’s royal guard on the second man, and he kneeled down in deference to the Grand Prince.
“If you are headed to Krolo, we are just about to ride back there,” he said as he rose back up. “We would consider it an honor to provide as escort for his grace’s dispatch.”
“I’ll take up your offer,” the man in a gray cloak and a purple riding coat said. He had short dark hair and the close trimmed beard popular now in the courts of Gece and gray eyes that stared deliberately around like they knew the truth of everything. “My name is Rhus, courtier of his grace, the Grand Prince E
wald Zhury. This is Sir Woolfrick of the royal guard.” Wayland gave them both a bowing nod.
“And I am Wayland of the Isles, deputy of Captain Tig Morten, of the canteen at Troli.”
“Ah, one of very men I wanted to see,” Rhus said back. “I think I have your orders here somewhere for you, but you will have to wait until we get to Krolo to understand them properly.” He waved back to his guard, and then looked to Wayland. “Get you men in order quickly then, as we still have a good distance to go today.”
They made greater speed, bringing the horses up to a canter at times and then dropping them back down into a walk. “Is there any news of the fighting?” Wayland asked during one of these slow periods. “I heard that the Kundi Goloks were pushed back from the Great Pass.” Rhus barked out a laugh. His gray eyes darted over and tried for a moment to subdue Wayland, to make him defer.
“You’re no lord with a castle, asking for the Grand Prince’s news,” he said.
“The road is my castle,” Wayland countered. “What affects the road, affects me and my duty.”
“That was very well enough returned,” Rhus admitted. “You might do well at court. Since the roads are yours, I will tell you what is being said also now on the streets of Kavvar.” He slowed down, and they all fell in a little closer to hear him.
“The Kundi Goloks are up on the Golden Slopes, in two big armies. Their leaders are Luvar Dursia of Sirund and Antza Vaho of the Kundi White Horde. You can see then why there are two armies, for those two would mix together like vinegar and salt. They thought they would easily punch through the Grand Pass, but of course they had problems coming up with a plan. After three charges and a great infantry advance, they withdrew back to Jorven, to burn and ravage it more, and make a better plan.”
A War of Stones: Book One of the Traveler Knight Page 65